ARC - Aspect Ratio Control
DSTV Aspect Ratio Control (ARC) settings are as follows:
16:9 - view 4:3 as.. Pillarbox (ARC 1)
16:9 - view 4:3 as.. Zoomed (ARC 2)
16:9 - view 4:3 as.. Stretched (ARC 3)
4:3 - view 16:9 as.. Letterbox (ARC 4)
4:3 - view 16:9 as.. Cropped (ARC 5)
It is always best to set the TV via its menu settings to the default aspect ratio - 16:9 for wide-screen LCD, LED or Plasma sets & 4:3 for conventional CRT's - and then choose the correct aspect ratio on the decoder according to your preferences as detailed above.
As DSTV has STILL not standardised all their channels correctly for 16:9 widescreen broadcasts, you will often have to manually adjust the decoder settings per channel or even by program, by using the Green SHIFT button and TV Guide / ARC button on your remote to change the aspect ratios accordingly, as detailed below.
According to me, your TV should be set to 16:9 (widescreen) and the decoder set to ARC 1 - this should be for any widescreen TV.
ARC 1 means 16:9 broadcasts will be shown correctly in widescreen (and full screen). 4:3 broadcast will show with black bars on the sides - the way they were filmed and are being broadcast in.
ANY other ARC will mean 4:3 pictures are either zoomed (and you loose part of the top and bottom) or stretched (and not in proportion making people fatter etc).
If something is then shown letterboxed on a 4:3 broadcast (so it has black bars all around (e.g. South Park on Comedy Central), you can then change to ARC 2 to zoom the picture - filling the screen AND not losing picture AND not distorting it.
And all those times when MC stuffs up and shows a widescreen program squashed into a 4:3 screen (so everyone looks extremely thin) you can then use ARC 3 to stretch the picture and see properly in widescreen.
This may help you as well - from the DSTV forum website:
http://forum.dstv.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1398&d=1300361547
